Checklist Addresses Ways Project Managers Fail with Data Warehousing

IT Business Edge contributor Michael Stevens recently uploaded a data warehousing checklist that was created by Sid Adelman, a principal in Sid Adelman and Associates, an organization specializing in planning and implementing data warehouses and in establishing effective data architectures and strategies. This document, specifically, addresses the Ten Worst Practices of the Unsuccessful Data Warehouse Project Manager.

Let's take a look at what some of these worst practices are. Click on the link above to go to the full document.

Accepting an unrealistic schedule. Situations can arise where project managers have been saddled with an unrealistic schedule because their management already committed the schedule to their management. To compensate, more workers are usually added to the project. Adding more people to satisfy an unrealistic schedule will not solve the problem. The mitigation is a project plan with realistic efforts defined, deliveries, milestones, and schedules-and managers who don't shoot from the hip.

Attempting the project with a dysfunctional team. You know who they are. They are the poison people in your organization, the ones who no one else wants and, lucky you, you've got them all. They are the ones with the bad attitudes, terrible work habits, poor social skills, obsolete technical knowledge, enemies throughout the organization, a side business, or a hobby or interest that takes 90 percent of their time. Keep all these poison people off your team. They will contribute nothing and will compromise the success of the project.

Accepting expectations to go where no project manager has gone before. Users often have trouble making the distinction between what they want and what they need and the "want" will usually translate into unrealistic functional expectations. There is a feeling among some users that if they don't ask for everything now, they will never get it and they want it all in the first release. The other notion is "This is the time to stretch, don't be timid, push the frontiers." Pushing the frontier with the data warehouse will transform you into a grizzly bear McManager Crunchy. Stay with proven methodologies and technology.

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